Facebook suspends 453 Pakistani accounts for spreading fake news, anti-India propaganda
In a major crackdown against fake news and anti-India propaganda, social networking giant Facebook has suspended 453 Pakistani accounts on the platform who were engaged in manufacturing misinformation. Along with the 453 Facebook accounts, 103 Facebook pages, 78 groups, and 107 Instagram accounts operating from Pakistan have also been suspended under the same charges.
In a major crackdown against fake news and anti-India propaganda, social networking giant Facebook has suspended 453 Pakistani accounts on the platform who were engaged in manufacturing misinformation. Along with the 453 Facebook accounts, 103 Facebook pages, 78 groups, and 107 Instagram accounts operating from Pakistan have also been suspended under the same charges.
Notably, Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had, in a letter penned to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg a day earlier, said that Facebook Community Guidelines must acknowledge Indian ethos and asked for country-specific community guidelines.
The Minister also raised his concern about the third-party fact-checkers hired the social media platform. "A Major issue with Facebook is the outsourcing of fact-checking to third-party fact-checker. How can Facebook absolve itself of its responsibility to protect users from misinformation and instead out-source this to shady organizations with no credibility, " Prasad wrote.
In the strongly worded letter, the minister detailed instances of bias by Facebook India against BJP and the right-wing in general. "As a transnational digital platform, Facebook must not only be fair but also visibly seen to be so, to users of diverse beliefs and ideologies.
The letter came after the Congress attacked the Centre citing a media report claiming that Facebook executive Ankhi Das expressed support for Prime Minister Narendra Modi ahead of the 2014 general election results.